Cranky Weekly Review Presented by OAK Airport: Tragedy in India, Silver Fades Away

Air India Flight Crashes on Takeoff

Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operating from Ahmedabad to London/Gatwick, crashed shortly after takeoff Thursday. The aircraft was briefly airborne, lost lift shortly after departure, and slammed into a hostel on the campus of B.J. Medical College. The plane was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. All but one person on board perished, making it the deadliest air disaster in India in decades and the first fatal crash involving a 787. The sole survivor, a British-Indian passenger seated near the front of the plane in seat 11A was reportedly ejected on impact and is now in stable condition.

Those on-board included 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, seven Portuguese nationals, and one Canadian. Rescue efforts were swift, but the intensity of the crash and fire left little hope.

Investigators from India’s AAIB, along with teams from the NTSB, FAA, and the UK are already on site. While the cause remains under investigation, the obvious question is why the airplane failed to climb. It’s also noted that the landing gear never retracted. Reports are that the black boxes have been recovered, and they should provide the information needed to solve this mystery.

For Air India, which has been attempting a high-profile modernization effort under the Tata Group, this is a moment of unspeakable loss that could cast a long shadow over the carrier for years to come.

Silver is Tarnished For Keeps

Well, Silver Airways has run out of runway. After a prolonged Chapter 11 staycation that began last December, the regional carrier unceremoniously brought down the curtain this week.

Despite efforts to find a buyer who could see a future in flying pink turboprops to Key West and the Bahamas, no serious bids came through during its bankruptcy auction. A Florida-based firm scooped up the remaining assets, but not the actual airline operations, which meant Silver shut everything down almost immediately, canceling flights and advising passengers not to head to the airport. But look at the bright side — if you’re in the market for a pink-liveried ATR aircraft, it’s a buyer’s market.

This wasn’t exactly a surprise ending. Silver had struggled for years with reliability issues, fleet challenges, and the general difficulty of running a niche regional operation in a tough market. Despite a recent codeshare with United and some route optimism, the pink writing had been on the wall for months, especially after operational meltdowns during peak travel weekends this spring.

While it never reached household-name status, Silver filled important gaps for smaller communities and leisure travelers alike. Now, those gaps are likely to stay empty — at least until someone else decides the Bahamas might be worth the gamble — or they like the idea of airplanes that remind them of flamingoes.

Look for more on this next week here on crankyflier.com.

Game Over for Play in the U.S.

PLAY Airlines is packing up its bright red jets and heading back across the Atlantic for good, calling it quits on all U.S. routes by late October. New York/Stewart? Gone by Labor Day. Boston? Last call mid-September. Baltimore? Final Icelandic exit on October 24. PLAY says it’s “restructuring,” but let’s be real: flying people from BWI to Iceland on $129 fares wasn’t exactly minting krona.

And in true startup airline fashion, the move comes just as the CEO leads a plan to take the company private and lease out half the fleet—because when in doubt, become a European aircraft landlord. It turns out betting your U.S. strategy on three Northeast airports with winter weather and limited connecting traffic is less “disruptive” and more “deeply seasonal with occasional blizzards.” The good news? PLAY still wants to focus on “sun destinations,” which sounds like a breakup text for the ages: “It’s not you, America. It’s the weather.”

Breeze Goes International

Breeze Airways received the go-ahead from the DOT to spread its wings overseas — kind of like the kid who finally gets to go on an out-of-state school trip. Effective through June of 2027, this exemption allows the carrier to blow scheduled flights into any country with a U.S. open‑skies agreement, meaning the proposed flight between New Haven and Pyongyang will have to remain on ice.

So yes, Breeze — the carrier that’s flown domestic operations since 2021 is now clearing customs, signing up for Global Entry, and dreaming bigger. The airline is expected to take on tropical getaways before tackling puffin-watching in Iceland or pub-hopping in Ireland. But assuming its leisure flights to Nice destinations across the Caribbean go so well, that maybe one day we can experience Breeze’s “Seriously Nice” service across the Atlantic to Nice.

Boeing Resumes Chinese Takeout Deliveries

Stop the presses and fire up the MAXs, Boeing is back in business with China — for now. After a two-month “will they, won’t they” phase that felt more like a bad rom-com than a trade negotiation, Boeing sent its first 737 MAX delivery across the Pacific, where it touched down in Zhoushan on June 9 wearing Xiamen Airlines colors and probably bringing a sigh of relief.

The delivery follows a 90-day tariff truce where both the U.S. and China agreed to temporarily chill out—dropping tariffs to something just shy of absurd. For Boeing, which has been sitting on a bunch of undelivered jets like the federal government hoards perimeter exemptions at DCA, this is very good news.

Of course, one plane does not a recovery make, but Boeing’s betting big that this signals a thaw in relations and maybe even a return to normalcy—whatever that means these days. CEO Kelly Ortberg says up to 50 aircraft could be delivered to Chinese airlines this year, which would be great, assuming no one sneezes and causes another geopolitical setback. The market responded with polite applause and a little stock bump, but the real win here is symbolic: Boeing’s most crucial international customer is opening the door again, even if it’s just cracked for now. Enjoy the 90-day honeymoon while it lasts.

• Aeroitalia lost in an Italian court which ruled its brand is too similar to Alitalia, which come to think of it, might be a win.
• AirAsia is all in on the A220.
• American is turning to the Mouse.
• Avelo is adding red eye-adjacent flights to San Juan.
• Delta is adding one-off flights from Atlanta to Berlin — connecting the two cities for the first time — this November.
• easyJet is trying to make it easier for the fine people of Newcastle to escape that hellhole and go on vacation.
• Envoy is adding 33 E175s.
• Ethiopian is finally partnering with Etihad.
• Finnair isn’t finnished with Toronto, it turns out.
• Greater Bay Airlines is planning to begin flying to the United States. Unfortunately it’s looking at flying to Guam and Saipan and not Green Bay.
• Gulf Air might add airplanes. It also might not. Stay tuned.
• Hawaiian‘s partnership with Delta will end at the end of June.
• Icelandair is upgauging its service to Nuuk to a 737.
• ITA is seeking antitrust immunity in the United States.
• JetBlue named Stephanie Evans Greene as its new SVP for Marketing and Brand. What that really means is she’s in charge of all the blue.
• Jetstar Asia didn’t want Silver to have all the publicity of shutting down to itself this week.
• Korean‘s merger with Asiana saw its loyalty integration plan rejected.
• LATAM will fly between Santiago and Melbourne beginning this December.
• Lufthansa is taking a steppe back in Kazakhstan.
• Porter received permission to add service to Costa Rica and Jamaica. It also received authorization to fly to the UK — although that could mean the British Virgin Islands and not across the Atlantic.
• Rex‘s winding down is winding down.
• Riyadh Air‘s first A321 is peeking out on the horizon.
• Royal Air Maroc is expected to announce a big airplane order at next week’s Paris Air Show.
• Ryanair is buying 30 engines. We assume they have airplanes for these engines, or maybe it’s some sort of arbitrage opportunity.
• Southwest is considering selling a portion of its MAX fleet to ensure Elliot can afford both the raw bar and the chocolate fountain at its holiday party this December.
• Spirit is adding three.
• TUS Airlines will be Israel’s fifth airline, hoping to launch sometime next year.
• UNI Air — don’t act like you haven’t heard of it — is adding 19 ATR 72-600s.
• United is temporarily pausing Starlink WiFi on about two dozen airplanes while it works out a static issue.
• WestJet announced an order for seven B737 MAXs.

I was confused when my printer started playing music.

Until I realized the paper was jamming.